Rowland Inquiry Rules Set In Secret

The House impeachment committee took the key steps Thursday of beefing up its investigative staff and adopting rules and procedures for its investigation of Gov. John G. Rowland.

The committee's legal staff has begun preparing its first subpoenas for documents pertaining to a wide range of gifts and favors accepted by the governor from state contractors and employees, the panel's co-chairman said. The subpoenas likely will be issued next week.

``We are now underway,'' said Rep. Arthur J. O'Neill of Southbury, the Republican co-chairman. ``Our attorney has plenty of work to do. We are now exiting the organization phase and moving into the investigation phase.''

But the bipartisan panel sent mixed signals about the openness of Connecticut's first gubernatorial impeachment inquiry by debating its new rules and procedures during a four-hour, closed-door session that might be a violation of the state's freedom of information laws.

Several newspapers immediately filed complaints with the Freedom of Information Commission.

O'Neill and his Democratic co-chairman, Rep. John Wayne Fox of Stamford, said they believed the closed-door session was permissible under the Freedom of Information Act. At the same time, the co-chairmen said they didn't believe the proceedings were necessarily subject to the state's right to know laws.

Still, they pledged to conduct as much business as possible in public.

``I would expect in the future that a significant block of what we do will be done in an open, public forum. I expect there also will be discussions with our counsel in terms of strategy, in terms of the manner in which we will proceed, in terms of things such as witnesses, questions for witnesses, tactics [and] procedures that are appropriately done in executive session,'' Fox said.

The rules adopted are generous to the governor: Rowland or his counsel will be afforded the right to cross-examine any witnesses to appear before the committee, including those who might appear in executive session.

O'Neill said granting Rowland the right to examine witnesses -- a right not extended to targets of investigative grand juries -- is intended to ensure the process is fair and beyond legal challenge. Rowland did not request the privilege, O'Neill said.

``We looked at what was provided in the Kinsella rules,'' he said.

The only target of a previous impeachment in Connecticut, Hartford Probate Judge James H. Kinsella, was granted the same right. The Connecticut Supreme Court later upheld the legality of the Kinsella impeachment rules, giving the committee confidence that the rules adopted Thursday also could pass muster before the high court.

Also Thursday, the committee unanimously hired a lead investigator: Bart M. Schwartz, a former federal prosecutor who served as chief of the criminal division in the Manhattan U.S. attorney's office under Rudolph Giuliani.

Schwartz is the founder and former chief executive officer of Decision Strategies, a global investigative firm.

O'Neill and Fox declined to identify the subjects of the subpoenas being drafted.

The subjects ``are probably already known to you,'' O'Neill told reporters, ``because you are where we're getting this information -- at this point.''

The U.S. attorney's office, which already had obtained records and documents from the governor in connection with free work done on his cottage on Bantam Lake, delivered a broad subpoena for records to the governor's office this week. Renovations to the cottage are a focus of the impeachment inquiry and the federal criminal investigation into gifts received by the governor.

``I certainly foresee similar requests going to the governor's office [from the committee], because we and the federal government are interested in some of the same topics,'' Fox said.

The committee's special counsel, Steven F. Reich, has called the U.S. attorney's office to explore how the two inquiries might cooperate. Prosecutors have yet to return the call, Fox said.

Fox said the committee was not concerned about conflicts with the federal authorities.

``We look upon ourselves and consider ourselves a separate and distinct entity. We have a job to do, and we're going to do it,'' Fox said. ``In fact, it happens to overlap what the federal government is doing. I can't control that. At the same time, we're not going to allow that to inhibit our process.''